Najib, Taib Mahmud and other BN
leaders should not be greedy and power-crazy to demand a “clean sweep” on
May 20 but to take note of Mahathir’s wisdom after 22 years of Prime
Minister that “Opposition is the essence of democracy”

__________________________

Speech

DAP Sarawak general election ceramah in Kidurong

by Lim Kit Siang__________________________

(Kuching,
Wednesday) :
Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud has one birthday wish for
his 70th birthday on Sunday – to have a clean sweep in Sarawak’s
ninth state elections on Saturday.

This has
been immediately taken up by other Barisan Nasional leaders, both federal
and state. Information Minister, Datuk Zainuddin Maidin called on the
people of Sarawak to “teach” what he called “peninsula-based” opposition
parties contesting in Sarawak state elections “a bitter lesson” by “burying”
them permanently on polling day on Saturday.

Zainuddin is
a “real disgrace” as a Malaysian Information Minister in preaching a narrow,
sectarian and unMalaysian politics, forgetting that he is himself from
peninsular Malaysia, that DAP Sarawak is not a peninsula-based political
movement but a 100% Sarawakian entity with full autonomy powers to make
decisions on election manifesto, programme and candidature. What should be
“buried” on Saturday is the petty, parochial, immature and fourth-world
political mentality of Zainuddin, who should be sacked as Information
Minister – but that is another question.

Yesterday
Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, came specially to Kidurong
to defeat the DAP incumbent, Chiew Chin Sing. He took up the cause to
give Taib Mahmud his birthday wish and said that Barisan Nasional cannot
afford to lose even one seat to the Opposition in the ninth Sarawak state
general elections.

Najib cannot
be more wrong. Barisan Nasional can afford to lose not one but several seats
to the Opposition on Saturday, which will be good for the people of Sarawak
but Malaysia.

Najib, Taib
Mahmud and other BN leaders should not be greedy and power-crazy to demand
a “clean sweep” on May 20 but to take note of the wisdom of his former
boss, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad after 22 years as Prime Minister of Malaysia
that “Opposition is the essence of democracy” – which means not only Chiew
Chin Sing should be retained as Sarawak State Assemblyman for Kidurong, but
that several DAP candidates in the Sarawak state general election,
particularly in Kuching, Sibu and Meradong should be sent into the Sarawak
State Assembly on Saturday.

Mahathir’s
views on “Opposition is the essence of democracy” were in the Q & A of a
recent talk, available on DVD, as follows:

What is your view on the suggestion that we assimilate
opposition members into the government to provide for check and balance and
additional insight?

Already we have so little opposition. If we absorb them, we
will not have any opposition at all. I’m against one-party government,
although I never saw the opposition very useful during my time, of course,
but I think they should be there. There should be an opposition because they
are there to remind us that we are making mistakes or that we need to study
things much more deeply. But if there is no opposition, you’ll think that
whatever you do is right and it may be very, very wrong.

That
is why, after 1969, Tun (Abdul) Razak was bringing in all the political
parties into Barisan Nasional, I was quite happy that DAP didn’t join.

I believed that we need to have an opposition. That is the essence of
democracy. Not too powerful, because if they are too powerful, they become a
nuisance, but sufficient to give the other viewpoint. Then you have to
discuss, you have to even modify your own thinking. I wouldn’t like to see
the opposition join the government, whether in politics or whatever. They
should stay where they are.

I congratulate them. But this I say after I’ve stepped down from being prime
minister. Of course, as prime minister, I would not say anything nice about
them, but I think they serve a useful purpose, so let’s put up with the
opposition.

When Mahathir said:
“I congratulate them”, he could only mean the Democratic Action Party, which
had kept Mahathir on his toes in the 22 years he was Prime Minister,
although DAP leaders had to pay a heavy price of our convictions, with
several DAP leaders detained by him under the Internal Security Act during
the 1987 Operation Lalang, like Karpal Singh, Lim Guan Eng, Dr. Tan Seng
Giaw, with me made “guest of His Majesty’s Government” for the second time
under the ISA at the Kamunting Detention Centre.

It is a pity
Mahathir did not realize the important role of the DAP and the Opposition
when he was Prime Minister after 22 years, but his wisdom gained after 22
years as Prime Minister that “Opposition is the essence of democracy” should
be fully heeded by the Sarawakian voters on Saturday to vote into the
Sarawak State Assembly a band of dedicated, committed and principled DAP
leaders to articulate loud and clear the voice of the people of Sarawak.

This may not be the
birthday gift Taib Mahmud wants on Sunday but it will undoubtedly be the
greatest gift to democracy to Sarawak and Malaysia in the past 43 years
since the formation of Malaysia, holding out the promise of putting
democracy back on track in Sarawak and Malaysia after three decades of the
derailment of democracy with Taib Mahmud as Chief Minister.